2026 Engage Learning Conference

What does it take to teach, learn, and lead in one of the most disruptive eras in education? Join ISTE CEO Richard Culatta as he moderates an honest conversation with the co-authors of The Savvy EdTech Leader. In this engaging, story-rich session, nationally recognized edtech leaders share real-world lessons from navigating complexity, driving innovation, and leading through constant change. Expect candid insights, practical strategies, and leadership moves you can apply immediately to thrive in today’s evolving K–12 landscape. Walk away with lessons that go beyond frameworks and lead to practice with impact.

Description: Is your district overwhelmed by digital tools? Join this session to learn practical strategies for streamlining app management while safeguarding student data and aligning with curriculum goals. Discover how successful districts vet, approve, and monitor apps using transparent processes and stakeholder collaboration. From AI to ROI, leave with tools, frameworks, and guiding questions to improve your ed tech governance. Stop the app chaos and start managing with clarity, purpose, and district-wide alignment.

Description: Stay ahead of shifting ed tech policy with the latest on Erate, FCC rulings, and challenges to USF. Explore how evolving policies on AI, cybersecurity, privacy (COPPA/FERPA), and digital equity impact your district’s funding strategy. Learn how to align purchases with E-rate rules, leverage Title I/IV and state broadband funds, and prepare for new grant opportunities. This session gives CIOs, tech directors, and IT leaders actionable strategies to improve compliance, brief stakeholders, and lead with confidence.

Before we can build deliberately developmental organizations, we must first understand our own developmental edge.  This session creates space for the deep personal work that enables organizational transformation.  Drawing from adult learning theory and the practices of high-performing leaders across disciplines, participates will explore how personal mastery becomes the foundation for collective efficacy.

Through reflective exercises and practical frameworks, leaders will identify their current plateau of mental complexity and map their own growth edges.  We will examine the critical distinction between technical problems we can  solve with existing expertise and adaptive challenges that require us to evolve our very own way of thinking.  Participants will explore how the most effective leaders develop what master chefs call "palate" - the ability to discern subtle differences that make extortionary outcomes possible.

This session addresses the inherent tensions of leadership: maintaining authority while showing vulnerability, driving  results while nurturing growth, and managing systems while remaining human.  Participants will develop personal practices for resilience and renewal, creating their own "mise en place" - the daily rituals and reflection protocols that keep leaders grounded amid complexity.  Special attention will be given to recognizing and interrupting patterns that limit both personal and organizational growth.

Leaders will leave with a personalized learning plan, practical tools for self-observation and reflection, and a deeper understanding of how continuous learning creates the conditions for others to flourish.

Stop constantly chasing student screens and start creating a more intentional, relationship-driven digital learning environment. In this session, you’ll learn how to use Hāpara to support student focus while fostering trust and engagement in your classroom. Explore strategies that move beyond reactive monitoring to proactive teaching practices that keep students on track. We’ll also connect these approaches to the FOCUS Act, helping you align your instructional methods with expectations while maximizing learning time and student success.

This presentation seeks to give teachers the tools to directly instruct their students on how both in-class and study behaviors impact learning, and to provide evidence based strategies that all students can use to maximize their academic success. Teachers will walk away from the session recognizing the importance of directly instructing students on strategies and behaviors that have traditionally been left up to students to master on their own. Topics include a brief overview of the neuroscience of learning, note taking specifics designed for your class, a stepwise approach to deep processing (supporting working memory and semantic encoding), how brief retrieval practice activities can improve student performance, and practices to reduce distraction and increase engagement.  We plan to give teachers examples of how these strategies can be applied in the classroom immediately. 

Based on the text, Training Design, Delivery, and Diplomacy by Keith Young and Tamarra Osborne, instructional leaders, coaches, and administrators will learn a framework for building professional development for teachers. Participants will explore how to best design professional learning, deliver engaging experiences for adult learners, and navigate the interpersonal dynamics that determine impact. The session will also highlight insights and practical lessons learned from Madison City Schools’ implementation of this framework with their instructional partners.